Trump’s immigration order could stop medical careers before they begin

n Friday evening, President Donald Trump signed an executive order halting immigration from Syria, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. It’s a reckless order that has sweeping implications for the medical community and its future generations.

In March, medical students and graduates of foreign medical schools will learn if they matched with a residency program and can pursue their medical careers. With Trump’s executive order come concerns that applicants from those seven countries will be disregarded because of questions over whether they’ll be able to enter and stay in the United States. The order could easily end medical careers in America before they begin.

I’m a first-year resident at Cambridge Health Alliance, so I remember distinctly the difficulties and anxieties of applying for a residency. For a woman I know here in the Boston area, the executive order has added an extra layer of stress to an already stressful situation.

advertisement

She is a young doctor from Iran who has had several interviews all over the US. She is worried that her application will be disregarded if a program director thinks that she won’t be able to get back into the US if she goes home. She’s just applied for a visa renewal and worries that a hospital won’t take a chance on her, even though she is well-qualified.

After finishing medical school in Iran, she moved to the United States in 2014 to train in neurology. She landed eight interviews this season, which is a testament to how well her skills are regarded. Because of the order, it’s unclear which programs are still considering her and which have decided not to.

This makes my heart sink. I come from a family of immigrant doctors, and I’m intimately familiar with the extra hoops foreign medical graduates need to jump through in order to train and practice in the United States. From securing research opportunities to doing additional rotations and observerships, international medical graduates often need to do more than the average American medical student just to get a foot in the door for a residency spot.

We need doctors — there are shortages in nearly every specialty. For decades, the US has relied on foreign medical graduates to fill unmet need.

Trump’s “extreme vetting” of Muslim immigrants may turn her dream into a nightmare. She’s convinced her nationality will affect decision-making.

“It feels like you are suffocating because you cannot do anything ” she said.

Another doctor I spoke to from Sudan has been preparing for three years to apply for a competitive spot in vascular surgery. He also asked for anonymity for fear of visa problems.

Between taking his medical licensing exams and securing rotations with different surgeons, he has been forced to travel back and forth between the US and Sudan because his visas have allowed him to be here only three months at a time. Despite these obstacles, he was also able to secure eight residency interviews.

“What I’m worried about is how this can affect the rank order lists, because this news, when it came, it came at a critical time for us,” he said. “It’s really a big blow for doctors who want to do residency in the US. We spend a lot of money and we spend a lot of physical time since our graduation to come here.”

He could have gone to the UK or Saudi Arabia, but he told me that he came to the US because there is no limit to achievement here. He plans to call program directors to plead his case.

Sign up for our hospitals newsletter, On Call

Last week, hours before Trump signed the order, I received a letter from the Committee of Interns and Residents, warning our members not to travel outside of the US.

“If you are from a Muslim majority country, we recommend seeking legal advice from an immigration attorney before exiting the U.S,” the advisory warned.

The CIR’s website even advises all foreign nationals legally working in this country to take precautions. “At this juncture, nationals of all countries may want to consider postponing all non-essential travel until the implications of this order become more apparent.”

With all that has happened since Friday afternoon, I have realized that the executive order applies to me in a way that could affect my family — and my career. I’m married to a green card holder, and that means for the time being, we can’t travel together to visit family abroad any time soon. It’s a decision we made out of fear and uncertainty. Nothing seems more un-American than that.

Stop whining fellows. There are thousands of Local doctors, Citizens and Permanent American residents without job or residency.
If you are born in IRAN, go and ask Iranian Govt to give you job. Not at the cost of Americans. Tell your govt not to raid and kill Americans in their own embassy in Tehran. Advise them not to hate non believers of your religion.
Ask them not to hate Christian culture before seeking job here.
If an American did not get job here, can he or she apply for a job in Iran ?
If they do not give me job, can I complain in media ? Will I leave Iran alive?

Do you even know any Iranians in this country? Most Persians don’t hate Christian culture, or hate the US. Otherwise, why would we have such a large vibrant Persian-American community? Everybody doesn’t represent their government from 30 years ago. If you went to Vietnam, would you be held accountable for what the US did during the Vietnam War? Again, there are not THOUSANDS of local doctors without jobs. The VAST majority of American trained doctors match into medical residency. Most of the ones that don’t on the first try could get other positions, otherwise we wouldn’t have unfilled spots in medical residency. Unfortunately, there are places where qualified US trained applicants just don’t want to go, so international applicants fill a vital role in providing necessary healthcare, especially in rural areas. Your comment is just so ignorant.

I think that US citizens should have 1st priority followed by permanent residents. After all its their tax payer money. The process of matching into a program might seem fair to some but those that really know what is going on, knows that it is all about who you know. It is not all about your score or that you are more qualified. You can have the lowest score ever but if your parent or family member knows somebody, you are guaranteed a position. This needs to stop!

This is just incorrect. “Those that really know what’s going on”- are you one of those people? Who decides who those people are? Statements like this cheapen the pain of those who couldn’t match, or the success of those who were able to. Please give an example of how having a parent or family member “knowing somebody” helped someone match over a more qualified applicant. If that person was unqualified to be a resident, then they will very quickly fail at being a doctor and people’s lives will be at risk. No hospital system wants to open themselves to that type of liability. This isn’t undergraduate.

Also, PLEASE stop whining about taxpayer money, blah blah blah. Taxpayer money is going towards having US patients get treated by the highest quality resident trainees. Don’t we want the most bang for our buck? Your whole comment just really gives off the scent of sour grapes. At least John Tilden was brave enough to share his personal struggle, you’re just “unknown.”